Thoughts on transitioning back into the U.S.

So friends, I am snuggled up in the spare room of my parents house reflecting on my first few days in the U.S. and feeling excited to move onto the next chapter of this year.  But first, I have this huge transition from Europe to the U.S. and then to camp to think about and reflect on.  I feel like I am almost going to go through a triple culture shock.  Coming from high fashion, espresso drinking, cobblestone street European life to no makeup, watered down coffee, north woods of Wisconsin, HoneyRock life will be quite the move.

I just reread some of my posts from Cork to remember what I felt like leaving Europe after my experience in Ireland.  Some of the feelings are the same, some are very different.  Studying abroad was like a dream.  I think I had almost no culture shock, no language barrier, people to be with and things to do and travels to plan.  Of course I missed my family and my best friends and there were times that were hard, but overall I remember it as a wonderful experience.

I want to say that being an au pair has been a breeze, but that would be lying and I want to be authentic here. As much as people just want to hear only the good parts, sorry to break it to you - I have had culture shock, had a language barrier, had a lonely spell, and other difficulties that I did not foresee.  I think much of my culture shock was going from CSB where I was surrounded by my people and always busy, then camp where again I was surrounded by my people and always busy, to here where all of a sudden I was totally isolated, didn't speak the language and had random bouts of free time to think about how much I missed home.

All of that to say, I have learned more about myself in these few short months than I could have ever imagined.  And in the end I will not say this was a bad experience at all, I will say it was a challenging and growing experience full of memories and life lessons that I will cherish.

Some things I will miss about Europe:
WALKING.  Places in the U.S. are just not designed for walking.  In my hometown of Cambridge we live pretty much in the center, but still takes about 10 minutes to drive to the grocery store.  It seems in many of the places I visited, you could reach a grocery store by foot in around 15 minutes or less.  The roads are designed for people to walk everywhere, whereas here it wouldn't even be safe for me to walk to Cub on the highway.  I will miss that for sure.

Espresso, pizza, gelato and baked goods.  These were my favorite foods in Merano.  I loved having a lengthy coffee break with a brioche or some other bakery goodie on a sunny day next to the river, or grabbing a 1 euro gelato cone and taking a walk.  Italian pizza is also fun because its so thin, you have to fold it over to pick up a piece or use a knife and fork to eat it otherwise it will flop all over the place.  My favorite was margherita pizza with arugula on top.

This time I have beautiful friends that I left behind.  I will miss having chats over coffee or drinks, sharing stories of our week, learning about their home countries, and having that connection of living in a foreign place and doing the same job.  I had no idea I would meet so many people from around the world that I could say are my friends, but its one of the best parts of this experience! I don't know what I would have done if I didn't meet these buddies.  I will come visit you all someday!

WELL DRESSED MEN.  This is kind of a joke but not really.  Most European men just know how to dress themselves well.  Not trying to make generalizations about American guys but Europeans are in general more fashion conscious than we are.  One of the first things I noticed when I got to New York is which guys were American.  I also realized I could use a normal outlet to plug in my phone which was fun.  American dollars feel weird, Target feels weird and understanding what everyone around me is saying is weird. The culture shock has set in.

This is quite long, but if anything this will be nice for me to have as a permanent journal of sorts.  I have really found that I love writing and I can communicate things in writing that I just can't put into words sometimes.  I am thinking of continuing to blog just about life in general, but you will see Facebook posts if I decide to do that.

I suppose thats it now.  I am heading to camp today and will jump right into training there.  If you guys are interested here is a link to the website of my camp, HoneyRock. It should bring you to a page about their winter retreats, which is what I will be working with in the next few months.  It is an amazing organization and I would appreciate prayer support as I transition back into serving alongside some pretty inspiring people.

Whew! Thanks everyone so much for reading and for your support.  I am just going to add a few of my favorite pictures form the past few months to wrap it up.  Arrivederci amici!

My favorite picture of the city on a sunny day with the colorful trees.  

Such a fun memory of meeting these kind people with my mom!

I just like this picture of my mom and I :)

I have great memories of Salzburg and this picture brings back warm and happy feelings of that time with my mom.  

I like this because it was taken on a bridge that I crossed everyday.  

Taken on one of the walking trails I frequented.

The prettiest gelato picture I ever took.  And its of my favorite flavor- Nocciola (hazelnut)

I walked down this street many times, so I also like this picture for that reason and also the colors :)

One of the prettiest pictures I took in Nürnberg, Germany. Again, love the colors.

This is a classic tourist pic, but I like it cause its the only picture from Paris of me that's not a selfie :)